Page 45 - 2022-08-01 Sound & Vision

with thick walls and crossmembers sure the system is operating in its
to add stiffness.
The bar’s front and sides are
wrapped in continuous black grille
cloth, while the flat top is a metal
grille broken only by a dark-glass
touch panel and LED status bar
at the center. Waving your hand
above the controls wakes up the
backlight. There’s a multifunction
bu on used for Bluetooth pairing
and selecting sources, volume up/
down, play/pause, and a bu on
that can wake up Alexa without a
voice prompt or turn off the built-in
mic. Around back is a connection
panel with an HDMI eARC port, an
optical input, an Ethernet port (for
use in lieu of Wi-Fi), and a USB-C
port for service.
The Panorama 3 uses 13 drivers
to create a 3.1.2 Atmos system.
Nine of those drivers are config-
ured in three front-channel arrays
with two upfiring drivers reserved
for height channels and two for
bass duties. Each front-channel
array mates a 0.75-inch titanium-
dome tweeter with a pair of 2-inch
woven glass-fiber midrange/bass
drivers in its own sealed chamber;
the tweeters are positioned at the
far le or right edge of the baffle
for the respective channels, while
the central tweeter is sandwiched
between the mids. The two height
drivers are also 2-inch woven
glass-fiber cones, each in its own
sealed chamber, that fire up at an
angle from behind the top grille at
either end of the soundbar.
Bass comes from a pair of
shallow 4-inch woven glass-fiber
woofers that fire up from the
cabinet and load into a sealed
chamber that runs across three
quarters of the soundbar. Here’s
the kicker (pun intended): the
substantial volume of that chamber,
coupled with dynamic equalization
(EQ) controlled by the unit’s digital
signal processing (DSP), allows
for a respectable claimed low-
frequency limit of 43Hz—without a
subwoofer.
The system is powered by 400
wa s of class-D amplification:
40 wa s goes to each woofer, 40
wa s to each height driver, 40
wa s to each pair of mid/bass
drivers (so, 40 wa s per front
channel), and 40 wa s to each
tweeter. The dynamic EQ makes
B&W Zeppelin (April/May 2022).
optimal range for maximum volume
with minimal distortion.
Audio processing in the
Panorama 3 is Dolby Digital up
to TrueHD Atmos quality (no
DTS), and it’ll decode hi-res up to
24-bit/192kHz from the streaming
services available through B&W’s
music and control app, which
I’ll describe below. Straight
two-channel stereo is processed
as 3.1 channels—with bass, but no
height channels—and Dolby 5.1
soundtracks are upmixed to 3.1.2. which is required for passing
SETUP
The setup procedure for the
Panorama 3 was familiar following
my experience reviewing the latest
Like the Zepp, the Panorma has
no remote and is configured and At a Glance
controlled using the Bowers &
Wilkins Music App. Once installed Audiophile sound for music
and booted on iPhone or Android, and movies
the app automatically connects Atmos height effects
with the soundbar and guides you
Good bass
through the process of naming it,
Integrated high-res music
engaging Alexa voice control, and
streaming
hooking it up to your TV.
On that last front, the ideal No expandability for
connection is HDMI eARC surrounds or sub
(enhanced Audio Return Channel), No voice-boost or height-
channel adjustments
discrete Dolby Atmos signals and Price: $999
allows volume control through
your set-top box or TV remote bowerswilkins.com
(via HDMI-CEC protocol). If you
don’t have eARC, plain ARC will
do with the limitation that Atmos soundtracks will be downmixed
to 5.1, though you’ll still get up
to TrueHD lossless sound along
with the aforementioned remote
compatibility. If you get stuck using
the optical input, you’re limited to
basic Dolby Digital or DD+, but
the Panorama 3 has the ability to
learn your TV remote’s volume
commands.
The B&W Music App is a rac-
tive, intuitive to use, and offers
integrated access to several
premium music services: Tidal,
Deezer, and Qobuz for CD-quality
or be er streams, plus Tune-In,
Last.fm, NTS, SoundCloud, and
Dash; Amazon Music and Pandora
are expected to be added in
the future. Spotify is supported
through Spotify Connect and, if
you’re an iPhone user, services
not supported in the B&W app
are accessible when streaming
via Apple’s AirPlay 2 platform. The
app also supports aptX Adaptive
Bluetooth for on-the-fly streaming
at resolutions up to 24-bit/48kHz
and offers some excellent curated
playlists culled from its integrated
services, which might include
hi-res playback if your subscrip-
tions support that.
Finally, the Music App is
envisioned to be the control hub for
any B&W wireless speaker in your
home, with multiroom functionality
promised later this year. In the
meantime, you can use the app
to access and control individual
speakers, which in the case of the
Panorma 3, includes adjusting
volume, selecting inputs, and using
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